Harvest Party Costumes

We do not celebrate Halloween in our household, but we are attending a harvest party this year at our church and thought it was a great opportunity to get the boys dressed up as they will be having a contest for who emulates the best Bible characters. I bought a pattern to make little robes and made silas a funny moses style jacket in about 1 hour. It was really fun. I made kace a tunic from the same pattern, but improvised and his came out even better, Still working on Pedy (she is going as the ten commandments with Silas to accompany as Moses) and for $10 I found a lion costume for gresham to compliment Kace as Daniel. We hope this new adventure goes over well for all of them, with four to choose from one of them actually might win the costume contest, how vain is that?

Striped

This quilt was made from a bunch of fat quarters because I found a very fun and easy pattern to use with stripes of fabric. It was super easy. This is also the very first quilt that I have had machine quilted. Most of my other quilts have either been done by hand or tied (which I love the look of). It was fun seeing how the quilting can go right along with the patterns in the fabric. Although next time I think I would use a thicker batting. It is definately one of the prettier quilts I have made.

Our oldest is about 2 years in this picture, maybe a bit younger. He loved that orange T-rex, big surprise, eh?! Just act like you can't tell how ugly our couch is!

Work In Progress

So I said I would share what I have been currently working on, here are the blocks roughly arranged on the floor. This has to be one of the most fun looking patterns I have tried. It is a lot of fun to think of different ways to quilt each fish.



Simple mock up, what this might look like all done



Close up



The pattern, you can buy it from here www.stargazey.com

Butterfly Garden

So I just finished another baby quilt that I have been working on for months, then when I got sick with this baby I was unable to finish piecing it together because I felt so aweful. Well two weeks ago I brought out my sewing maching and actually used it for the first time since before Christmas. I also began work on another project which I will share soon, if I get the blocks trimmed up quickly, but it is for our own newest addition, whose gender is still unknown. I suddenly realized last week that I actually never finished my third sons quilt even though they all have one (His is simply not quilted or even basted only the top is finished and now seems a little futile to finish it since he is already 15 months old!) But this pattern is from a WONDERFUL book called Stack a New Deck. I LOVE this book it is sooooo imaginative and quick and fun. I made curtains for the boys room from a pattern in this book, which I must document when we get them rehung from their latest washing.

This pattern is one I have made twice because I like it so much, the original was a larger lap quilt for a wonderful woman, but I loved it so much that I had to make a second one for a baby. I used several fat quarters and then looked in my stash to add the backing and the border. I think it came out beautifully! It is hand quilted, which has become very soothing for my uncomfortable joints lately. I hope you enjoy looking at this one as much as I do!!


I just think this is so pretty!


Makes me wish I had a little girl to do girly things for!


The backing is covered with butterflies


Just a peek, okay so this is all me, not really for any edification I just liked it!


The tag.

My Favorite Quilt- Whirling Squares

After having made several quilts I had an abundance of scraps to use up. So I found this great quilt book Scrap Quilts at a used book store and found this pattern among the last few pages, sometimes you can find gold in the back. This actually looks a lot simpler then it actually is, it took me forever to figure it out at first.


This is the Awesome Quilt Book by Judy Martin


This is the pattern I hope you can see it!!


Here is the quilt top



The backing and the top


One of the Quilt blocks 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 along the binding


Another random block, they are all different.


I put polyester batting in this one which made it super snuggly, it is THE softest and most comfy quilt I have made. It is tied with varigated cream, brown and white cotton yarn. I just love this quilt. It is large enough to be a bed quilt for a double bed (I made it when we were still sleeping on a double, before we graduated to a King).

Nine-Patch Star - "Star Chicken"

Here is my latest completion. It has been in the action stages now for over four years, since it is hand quilted and has yet to have found an appropriate home selection. After much work and hard thinking it is going to a happy home and a sweet little boy to be. Here is the larger picture of it, it has chicken and farm fabric in a nine-patch star pattern.


Here is a close up of one of the red stars, there are also blue ones. I will have to add a close up later when I get around to taking it.


This pattern was like the fourth I ever tried and it is super easy. It was so much fun getting the fabrics together and we (my husband and I-he is always my greatest opinion!) loved the yellow chicken fabric! Isn't this simply perfect for a little boy??? This is also my first baby quilt ever. Came out pretty good, huh?!

Hourglass

For our middle son I made this hourglass pattern for a crib quilt. It was a lot of fun because the pattern of the fabric was various tessellations. They are all jeweled colored fabrics, which made it easy in finding a background fabric. With such great fabrics to work with you can make a beautiful quilt no matter the pattern. It may not look like it but there is a pattern on the order of the hourglass blocks. I still need to attach a a label. This is definitely a beginners pattern because it is so simply and quick! Very easy for anyone to do! Go ahead and give it a go!

Here is a link to an online patter for a variation of this pattern!

Napkins

I was visiting another person's blog(big surprise right?) click here to view that post, and the author was recommending making easy napkins and using them instead of paper towels or store bought. It saves not only on your own cost at the grocery store, but it also is better for your waste output. I thought it was a great idea since we are forever running out of these things! I thought that it would be so convenient to always have clean napkins.

So I took some fabric that I had bought on clearance since it was being discontinued and cut it up quickly and whipped together these easy napkins in about 30 minutes. They are super easy. I took two pieces of 1/2 yard cuts and sliced them in half then I cut the fat quarters in half and folded them inside out and stitched on the machine without pinning, only three sides. Then I turned them right side out and folded the end that was still open and stitched again and these lovely napkins were born! They are super soft and the fabric is rather loud so you cannot even tell if there are stains on them and I have used them now for months!

This is a super easy and simple way to make a much nicer house and also have something reusable instead of being more wasteful and less spendy. I hope you try this easy easy project!!

A Star Addition!

This quilt was one given to me in pieces and I put it together and then sent it off to my good friend for her second son. What I really loved about this one is the label I was able to contrive for the back of this quilt. It was my first attempt at applique and it turned out really great and my girl friend liked it too. Although when I visited her, she had put the quilt in storage--Oh the agony! Just kidding, M!!! I cut out an animal from the print that matched the quilt and then snipped around the corners and whipped it onto the quilt back after binding. It really was certainly the right touch! I love this little piece and am glad there was a little boy to pass it along to. It is tied with variegated yellow, white and blue cotton yarn! I love a tied quilt! Just so much more snuggly!

Hitting The Bull's Eye

My second quilt was also a gift from my mother-in-law. It was given me in September right before my husband's 25th birthday (and I might add that I was expecting our first baby and didn't yet know it). It was a beautiful quilt kit intended to make the Bull's Eye pattern from a book she also gave me called Quilts from Aunt Amy. It is an easy and interesting pattern where you cut circles and then stack them, slice them and sew them back up again! I tied it with natural cotton, which I might add gave me blisters on my needle finger because tying a cotton batted and cotton top with cotton yarn is very difficult!

I hope you are encouraged to make this awesome pattern some time from your own stash of scraps. I have since made three others and cut out a fourth for my mother-in-law to do, I am not sure she has tried yet. The first picture is of the actual example and the second is my husband's birthday gift from four years ago, obviously with the conceived addition in the flesh (I am sure when he is twenty he will hate me for showing this picture off but the quilt is honestly the focus)!!

My Very First (and only for that matter) Wall Hanging

My mother-in-law, the woman who graciously taught me to quilt, gave me for Christmas a gift certificate to Keepsake Quilting. Now for those of you who aren't quilters or simply don't recieve this amazing magazine, it is one of the greatest places to get any type of quilting materials. I thought I had hit the jackpot, needless to say! I ordered several different things and tried to stretch the gift as far as possible! In the group I ordered a fat quarter pack of french country patterns, it was beautiful! And so I embarked on a new adventure.....I decided to make a wall hanging. I went through my pattern books and picked out a pattern and then decided on how I would add sashing and borders. The I took the gorgeous pack of fabric and chose which colors would go where! I hope you enjoy looking at my first adventure in wall hanging, it is entirely hand quilted (don't you just love hand quilting the small ones, it is so much simpler in my opinion?!). I hope you let me know what you have done in terms of a wall hanging and post it on your site and link it so I can look at your great ideas!